At the beginning of July, with falling Covid rates and increased vaccinations, the provincial government loosened restrictions in British Columbia. For months people had been prohibited from traveling between regions or coming in from outside the province. No one could travel by ferry across from the mainland for “non-essential travel”, and masks and distancing requirements were still in place. Things were pretty quiet around here.
All that changed and our little summer tourist town was transformed in an instant. Masks are no longer mandatory and social distancing has downgraded to what appears to be a suggestion.
We took advantage of the lifting of travel restrictions and Number One Son Steve and Rosie the Dog came for a visit last weekend. I hadn’t seen him in a year, although he lives just a 2 hour drive away in Victoria. I got to hug my son at long last and it was Bliss.
After such a long time of peace and quiet the immediate flood of people from the mainland and elsewhere descending on us was something of a shock. That first weekend I went to the Saturday Farmers Market to find it packed with visitors, just as it used to be in summers pre-pandemic. It was disorienting after such a long time of constriction and I found it completely unsettling. “Staying in your lane” was out the window and social distancing was crumbling. Some wore masks, some didn’t. Yesterday at the market, a month since the tourists descended, I notice that even more are now maskless, despite the crowds. I am not one of them. I look to my right and I look to my left and I wonder “Are you not wearing a mask because you are double vaxed or because you are never gonna be vaxed?” Twilight zone.
Worth More Standing
News on the island these past months has been about the protests against old growth logging, centred around Fairy Creek on southern Vancouver Island, where protesters have been blocking access to the area to stop the logging companies from going in to rip ’em out. They’ve been camped at the watershed for a year now and since the companies got a court injunction against the protesters 500 have been arrested. This hasn’t stopped them. The government has responded with some temporary halting of cutting and promises to come up with a plan for old growth (and other) forestry changes. Right.
To put this in perspective, on Vancouver Island all but about 1% of old growth forest has been destroyed and trying to save these ecosystems of what little is left is not insignificant. Timber companies continue to cut 10,000 hectares of old growth forest every year. The trees cannot save themselves, it is up to the humans who care to do that. I care. So what can I do? How do you stop the machine?
I heard about a rally and mini-march to be held in our little town in support of our old growth forests and decided to go, more from a sense of helplessness and despair than anything else. I can’t go and get myself arrested at Fairy Creek but I can spend an hour or two to add my body and voice to the count. We were maybe 120 people. It was also the first time I’d been in any kind of group of people in a very long time, which was mildly uncomfortable. I kept my mask on. And lest I become discouraged over our small numbers I have to remind myself that this gathering of people who care, in this little town, was echoed in rallies in other towns and cities as well.
Heat Dome
I think many have heard about the record breaking heatwave we experienced in British Columbia at the end of June. Five days. Over 600 people dead. Shellfish cooked along the shores.
In our backyard the highest temperature reached was 38C. “Normal” temperatures for this time of year (although there’s no such thing anymore) are usually mid-20’s, with overnight temps in the teens. We have no central air, nor do most people around here. I spent 3 of those days more or less staying in one place in front of my own air conditioning system. $30 from Canadian Tire…
BC is on Fire – Again
The town of Lytton in the interior became a violent metaphor for climate change. During the heatwave it earned the painful record of being the hottest place ever recorded in Canada. For three consecutive days long standing national records were broken – the highest temperature clocked at 49.6C. On the fourth day the town literally exploded when forest fire took the entire place out in a matter of minutes.
There are now 240 fires burning on the mainland. Friends of ours in Osoyoos in south Okanagan were forced to evacuate their home a week ago due to fires that reached within half a kilometer from their property. We visited them several years ago and I can appreciate the terrain and the danger they are in high up on Anarchist Mountain. (See Road Trip-A Change of Scenery.)
So far there have been no major fires here on the island. We have had no rain since June 15th. All month we’ve had nothing but clear blue skies and sunshine, then this past Saturday and Sunday it was overcast but not from rain clouds. The smoke generated from the interior fires has made its way to Vancouver and some of this headed across the Strait in our direction. So far, over here we can’t smell the smoke yet, but the skies were hazier and we keep an eye on wind direction as well as everything else in the weather forecast.
My new motto is ‘we’ll see what happens next’.
So it is now a month since the province’s public health re-opening. I continue to take baby steps into the world. A visit in the back garden, coffee with a new friend on a restaurant terrace, taking in the new art exhibitions at our local arts centre – the latter particularly happy-making as the place was closed for over a year and I am SO over looking at art only on a computer screen.
However, a month after relaxing public health orders, we now see new Covid cases in the province again on the rise, and have tripled in the last 10 days, no surprise there. This sign in a local independent grocery store says it plain and simply…
We’ll see what happens next.